Adobe’s Project Rush promises to be a major turning point for video editing, introduces true cross-platform parity
posted Tuesday, June 19, 2018 at 9:00 AM EDT
Adobe has announced a new project that some video editors have been waiting years to see. Dubbed "Project Rush," it is a brand new video product that has the power to change everything about editing films. For me, it is a project that is finally a realization of why "cloud" was a necessary shift for Adobe's growth and development. It has certainly been a long wait, but from what I've seen of Project Rush, it's going to be worth it.
Before we get into that, it's worth learning something about Adobe's current generation professional video editing tools. Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Audition, we learned, actually all use the exact same engine, just with a different UI on top of them. So once Adobe had accomplished that, their next question was... what could they do with them?
The answer is Project Rush, a program that is all those programs in one, accessible from any device without sacrificing anything.
They are reimagining the experience of video editing completely.
Adobe told us that they have been listening to the way we as editors work and our concerns with the current video creation process. Previous attempts to marry mobile and desktop video editing did not go well (if you've ever used Premiere Clip, you know what I mean), and it appears Adobe has learned from those mistakes.
Rush not just allows editing from anywhere, it actually empowers it. Instead of making a set of applications that are different but try to work together, Rush is the same program no matter where it is booted. Adobe said that it wasn’t enough to do it just for the desktop. It had to be for everything. They want to blur the lines between what is a desktop or a mobile device. They have promised the exact same pixel quality on any device wherever you are.
One example use case will be starting an edit on a computer and then moving to an iPad or laptop while on the go. In this case, the original files would remain on the original desktop, but proxies would automatically be generated to allow for fast, easy editing while on the go. You could export based on those proxies from your mobile device, or get back home and export the originals from the base computer.
They also said that their goal is to make it so that you can shed that list of programs you use to build a video down to just one, through one interface. "Quickly edit, add filters, optimize audio, and select from a wide variety of highly customizable titles. Then, add a thumbnail, schedule your post, and publish to multiple social platforms with one click – all without ever leaving Rush," Adobe told us.
Adobe is adamant that Rush is not a toy. Even though they are building in ways to make approaching the new application easy, don't mistake it for the kiddie pool. It's not a replacement for Elements, and it borrows everything from the professional programs that came before it. This includes color correction that’s powered by Premiere Pro, like filters and more advanced color editing, and Rush leverages Audition to auto-detect the audio in your videos, so you can duck with one click, and offers easy ways to improve sound quality and reduce background noise.
It is also worth noting that Rush will not exist in a walled garden. Rush and Premiere Pro are intimately connected, so anything you do in Rush anywhere can be used in Premiere Pro as well.
One final note: Adobe heavily emphasized the ability to use Rush as a single point of online publication. Adobe built in sharing custom presets and one-click publishing to any number of outlets from one location. This end-to-end workflow in a single experience irrespective of whatever device you are on.
If Adobe delivers on everything they are promising with Rush, and I fully believe they will, then we are finally seeing a major turning point in video editing software. This was the future we were promised all those years ago, and it is incredibly exciting.
Adobe will be sneak previewing Project Rush at VidCon US where you can get a look at the new tool in action during a product demo session with Maya Washington, also known as Shameless Maya on June 23 starting at 11:30 am in Room 260.
Otherwise, you can apply to be invited to the Rush Beta at http://adobe.com/go/project-rush.